GUT-BUCKET FEAR...RELAX, GOD'S HAND IS IN IT

I have been going through what to the reasoning mind would be called "a rough patch"...I call it the rough and rutted road of still more spiritual growth. There is no super-highway to spirituality, there is just trudging the road of happy destiny.

That is one of the great gifts of spiritual growth...experiencing discomfort, dismay, anxiety. gut-bucket fear, and inwardly knowing: This is the necessary Steps that lift us to the higher plane deeper. This, too, is of God. 

It helps immensely that our mentor, friends, co-walkers share our journey with us..."share our journey" is code for telling the truth to, the apparently ugly truth, without justifying or excusing our fear-feelings...plus, or especially, naming who or what we are blaming. 

If our nemesis du jour is another person, and it usually is, we call them a glassbowl because they are to us in that moment. 

There! That is building trust. We air it out now or it makes like Velcro and sticks with us. Out in the open, we see it more fully and trust begins to lead us into spiritual awareness. 

Now we recall what we see is always ourself, and that we trust. We feel the lightness of acceptance in our head and in our heart. Acceptance transmutes into forgiveness and the nemesis has the makings of a friend...if that be God's will. 

They may have appeared to us to be a glassbowl for our spiritual growth. God uses what we give him...everything happens by invitation only. Until we surrender unto acceptance, we cannot own it. 

Until we accept ownerhip, with love in our thoughts and in our heart, we cannot let it go.  

By love may He be gotten and holden, by thought never. -- The Cloud of Unknowing

Thank you.

TO PEACE AN UNSETTLED MIND

Here are a few of the words, phrases, quotes and blinding flashes of the obvious that right me when I am walking the egoic mind line:

Joy is the result of faithful trusting acceptance of My Will, when It seems not joyous. -- God Calling, January 8
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Blinding flash of the obvious - Fear not being drawn into the lion's den for the lion in the den is Aslan.
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I view Jesus the way I view Elvis—I love the guy, but a lot of his fans freak me out. -- John Fugelsang

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BFO: Less-than living is freedom to choose less rather than more.
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Much learning does not teach understanding. -- Heraclitus
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It’s quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes. —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
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We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them but by waiting for them. -- French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil
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Trust the down, and God will take care of the up. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," April 10, 2022
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Now comes the part that makes the 'belly bitter'...the living of these truths. -- Joel Goldsmith

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I feel more settled just by rereading these...and I have a whole lot more I can delve into. Often I try to find a favorite, and they all qualify, but Goldsmith's "bitter belly" is my first among equals.

Thank you.

RESIST NOTHING, II

[The following is a reprint of my post of  November 3, 2013]

I had a dream once that I was at the shore, wading in the ocean. A wave knocked me down; I was immediately caught in the riptide and pulled out to sea. I knew I was drowning, and I heard me say, "Just breathe through the water, just breathe." And I did and walked away.

This morning I read from The Illuminated Rumi:

Late, by myself, in the

boat of myself,

no light and no land

anywhere.

Cloud cover thick.

I try to stay

just above the surface,

Yet I'm already under

and living

within

the ocean.

Thank you.

CONSTANT CONTACT = CONSTANT FRUIT

Blinding flash of the obvious: God can make 'what happened, unhappen.'

For what happened to unhappen we "only" need purify our memories, remember without condemnation of self or others. Remember with love and laughter.

The grit and the grist of our part...for the "only" to happen...requires our upgraded attitude, which is hairy enough...we're talking surrender. That dreaded surrender is then transmuted into acceptance...acceptance that it is God and God alone who can and will purify our memories, change our mind. 

Our heartfelt acceptance clears the way for recognition that we do not go to God for to get anything. No...we go to God for God and that is all; God then makes our (yours, theirs and my) crooked places straight. 

There...constant contact with the God of our own understanding grows the fruit of our still more spiritual growth.

Thank you.

WE GO BEYOND REASON TO GOD

 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. -- The 23rd Psalm

There. The promise of a mind at peace...I shall not want. 

The essential part of that sentence, the Lord is my shepherd, promises that it is with the Lord as our shepherd that we shall not want. Too often "we shall not want" is the attention-getter. When we fully recognize that the Lord is our shepherd, we are moved to the "not wanting" part. We realize just what "I shall not want" means, i.e., we have enough, and we shall never not have enough with the Lord as our shepherd. 

We are not promised more than enough...we will never need more than enough, we have enough. Point of fact, we have had more than enough and found it to be not enough.  

Enough, then, is our pearl beyond price. And our spiritual lesson comes to life...we must prove the words we speak or they are just so many words making noise. 

We have enough, so we not just can but we must freely give: From our hands and our feet, from our heart and our soul...and from the natural mind's first, money, made last, our money.

We give because we want to...never to get, but to give.

We must go beyond reason to love. -- Thaddeus Golas

Thank you.

NOT BY WILL, BY WILLINGNESS

In my quiet time I ponder how we must go below what we know...to the place of unknowing. We must pass by our egoic mind, which lives in fear of showing our ignorance. Face it, we must needs be ready and willing to walk out undefended. Or, as it was put to me, you gotta show your butt in public. 

Next, I go to my readings. There is the quiet word spelled out: Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. – Matthew 18:3

"To go below to the place of unknowing" is the child's mind, secure in unquestioning dependence on another...unknowing. 

I like the description of the teaching in Matthew as like unto a Zen koan, which invites listeners to hold two contradictory statements together until a new awareness arises.

Interestingly, just after I read the Zen koan quote, I came across a Marcel Proust quote: We are healed of suffering only by experiencing it to the full. 

We note suffering to the full to be healed of suffering is the essense of our learning to resist not; then we catch  "until a new awareness arises." There it is, the key...which is not "until we think of a new answer" but "until a new awareness arises."

We must go beneath that which we know, under all that our reasoning mind has garnered for our intellectual security. The new awareness exposes intellectual safety as just another false security blanket. 

Not to put on airs, but I like to think of us as being floated across our own Rubicon...not by will, but by willingness. 

Thank you.

OUR NEED IS THE FATHER'S CALL

Fear not being thrown into the lion's den for the lion in the den is Aslan. -- long ago blinding flash of the obvious

Old realization born again: I...I...to hear the invitation of I in I as All is all. 

I am becomes sacred with the realization that I am encompasses you and me, Putin and Pope Francis, a rock in the field and the lily of the valley in its bed, the jungle rat and any neighborhood saint...each an I, the I am of God.

To acknowledge that out loud and proud sullies it as untrue. To hold it in that hidey-hole within, the whereabouts hidden even to our own self, is to let it Be.

On the occasion that it shows itself to us, we bow our head and shout a silent Hallelujah. We go on about the business of the day...peaced, and quite unprepared to forget it.  Which, being human, we will...until we need it again. 

Here comes peace to quell our niggling fear by reminding us: The Father knows our needs. 

Thank you.